Velikovsky collected many stories from around the world relating to an early apparent confusion about events relating to Jupiter and Venus, so there is space for various models, Venus may have had an interaction with Jupiter, or many other things may have happened initially... Just the 'birth of Venus' in V's book takes up nearly 40 pages, over two chapters, and he gives 178 references to myths and traditions and ancient documents covering just the sightings and events linking the strange and changed appearance of Venus, including hair and horns etc, and linking Venus and Jupiter, described by many different peoples around the world, from Samoans, to Chinese to Mesopotamia to Native American peoples...

My own feeling is the actual origin of Venus is not so important as the possibility of Venus changing orbit... either having a close call with Jupiter or being nudged out of orbit around Jupiter or some other reason.. Jupiter is a major player in the solar system, and has many very large satellites, so it is believable to me, to imagine Venus coming into close contact with Jupiter and then the remaining scenario of dramatic events involving Earth, Mars, Jupiter etc unfolded as carefully collated by V is the result...

When V's "Worlds in Collision" was published in 1950, the then current model of the solar system was of stability and order in the heavens, so V was ridiculed mercilessly and consigned to oblivion by the majority of academia... yet today his careful language and studious collection of quotes is overshadowed by far wilder modern speculations about planetary orbits, and of course Shoemaker Levy 9 smashing into Jupiter was a paradigm-changer:

This is from a page describing almost exactly the sort of orbital changes that V said might have happened, but these modern speculative models are even more extreme...

"A few decades ago astronomers were pretty confident they knew how planets formed.

Based on our own solar system they thought small, rocky planets formed near their host star and larger, gaseous or icy planets formed further out.

For example, some planets have been found so close to their star that they orbit in just days - but density studies indicate these planets are somehow made of ice."

Other rocky planets have been found so big that they have led astronomers to question exactly how planets can form.

It's possible that, in some systems, planets are knocked into wild orbits by others, or they are captured by a star as it passes.

The process of planet formation itself might, too, be more chaotic than we once thought.

‘The first detections of exoplanets revealed bodies which are utterly unlike any solar system planet,’ says Nasa, ‘and subsequent discoveries have shown that many exoplanet systems are very dissimilar from ours.

‘In some exosystems, planets as massive as Jupiter orbit so close to their star that they are heated to high temperature and their upper atmospheres are swept into space.

<...>Finding planets that don’t conform to our theories merely means that we haven’t quite nailed down how planet formation works yet.Why, then, have we found systems where there are gas giants in orbit a tenth the distance of Mercury in our own solar system (known as 'hot Jupiters')?

Why do some planetary systems have giant ‘super-Earths’, huge rocky planets devoid of a gaseous exterior, orbiting in their extremes?

And why, too, do some planets orbit in wildly elliptical orbits rather than in a flat ‘plane’ like those in our solar system?

The story of Venus' birth, borrowed directly from the Greeks, explains that she arose from the foam of the sea shore. This miraculous creation resulted after Saturn castrated his tyrant father, the supreme sky god Caelus (equivalent to the Greek Uranus). After Saturn had sliced off Caelus' genitals, he promptly threw them into the sea. As the genitals drifted over the water, the blood and (or, in some versions, the semen) that issued forth from the severed flesh mixed with the sea water to foment the growth of the child who would become Venus.

Greek mythology: First Uranus=?Assuming the myths refer to actual solar system events:I've edited the quotes to help sort out the order of the planets in the storiesin this way [order][Greek name][Roman name]

....just as 2.Kronos(Saturn) was the father of 3.Zeus(Jupiter), the new planet 1.Uranus should be named after the father of 2.Kronos(Saturn)1.Uranus has been involved with another planet:From modern science, there are theories of planetary 'migration':

The reason for 1.Uranus's unusual axial tilt is also not known with certainty, but the usual speculation ....an Earth-sized [object] collided with 1.Uranus, causing the skewed orientation.....Recent simulations of planetary migration have suggested that both ice giants formed closer to the Sun than their present positions, and moved outwards after formation...

The planet 2.Kronos(Saturn) who was 'castrated' by his 'son' 3.Zeus(Jupiter) has evidence for a 'destroyed' moon...

2.Kronos(Saturn) has 62 known moons, 53 of which have formal names. In addition, there is evidence of dozens to hundreds of moonlets with diameters of 40–500 meters in 2.Kronos(Saturn)'s rings,[78] which are not considered to be true moons.There are two main hypotheses regarding the origin of the rings. One hypothesis is that the rings are remnants of a destroyed moon of 2.Kronos(Saturn)...."...The rings .... are composed of 93% water ice..."

3.Zeus(Jupiter) from modern science:

Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with 3.Zeus(Jupiter) destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. As 3.Zeus(Jupiter) came toward the inner Solar System, in what theorists call the Grand Tack Hypothesis, gravitational tugs and pulls occurred causing a series of collisions between the super-Earths as their orbits began to overlap.

Gas giants are believed to be able to orbit even closer than Mercury:

Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems with multiple planets. Regularly these systems include a few planets with masses several times greater than Earth's (super-Earths), orbiting closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun, and sometimes also Jupiter-mass gas giants close to their star.

Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets, including Earth.

The Greeks had almost forgotten 1.Uranus when writing became common:

The ancient Greeks and Romans knew of only five 'wandering stars' (Greek: πλανήται, planētai): Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Following the discovery of a sixth planet in the 18th century, ....the name Uranus was suggested by astronomer Johann Bode as the logical addition to the series, since Mars (Ares in Greek), Venus, and Mercury were the children of Jupiter, Jupiter (Zeus in Greek) the son of Saturn, and Saturn (Cronus in Greek) the son of Uranus. What is anomalous is that, while the others take Roman names, Uranus is a name derived from Greek in contrast to the Roman Caelus.

So no Roman name for Uranus, the fly-by-nighter grandfather of them all....

so first 1. Uranus, overcome by 2. Kronos(Saturn), overcome by 3.(Zeus)Jupiter

...it is said that 2.Kronos(Saturn) was castrated by his son 3.Zeus just like he had done with his father 1.Uranus before

In Greek mythology, 2.Kronos (/ˈkroʊnəs/ or /ˈkroʊnɒs/ from Greek: Κρόνος, krónos), was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of 1.Uranus.... He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son 3.Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus.

The second 'god' 2.Kronos(Saturn) was usually depicted with a harpe, scythe or a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose 1.Uranus, his father.

We don't know who the Greek mythological grandfather 1.Uranus was in planetary terms, maybe Uranus Uranus has an odd axial rotation its poles nearly pointing at the sun....

1.Uranus was overcome by 2.Kronos(Saturn), not to be confused with Chronos aka time....(This happened in Roman times, Romans generally didn't like the son-castrates-father part of the story)

When 1.Uranus met with Gaia, 2.Kronos(Saturn) attacked him with the sickle, castrating him and casting his testicles into the sea. From the blood that spilled out from 1.Uranus and fell upon the earth, the Gigantes, Erinyes, and Meliae were produced. The testicles produced a white foam from which the goddess 4.Aphrodite(Venus) emerged. For this, 1.Uranus threatened vengeance and called his sons Titenes (Τιτῆνες; according to Hesiod meaning "straining ones," the source of the word "titan", but this etymology is disputed) for overstepping their boundaries and daring to commit such an act. (In an alternate version of this myth, a more benevolent 2.Kronos(Saturn) overthrew the wicked serpentine Titan Ophion. In doing so, he released the world from bondage and for a time ruled it justly.)

So 1.Uranus is overcome by 2.Kronos(Saturn), Wicked serpent-in-the-sky, 1.Uranus' celestial nuts removed, white foam (comet?) in sky, 2.Kronos(Saturn) wins, 4.Venus is born out of the foam of 1.Uranus(long hair, comet?), peace on Earth for a while....

2.Kronos(Saturn) gives birth to five 'children', 2.Kronos(Saturn) devoured them all as soon as they were born (Shoemaker Levy 9 )..... the sixth 'child' is 3.Zeus(Jupiter).....2.Kronos(Saturn) also fathered another child Chiron...

3.Zeus(Jupiter) used an emetic given to him by Gaia to force 2.Kronos(Saturn) to disgorge the contents of his stomach in reverse order: first the stone he had swallowed......then his five more siblings of 3.Zeus(Jupiter). In other versions of the tale, 2.Kronos(Saturn) is given an emetic to force him to disgorge the children, or 3.Zeus(Jupiter) cut 2.Kronos(Saturn)'s stomach open. After freeing his siblings, 3.Zeus(Jupiter) released the Hecatonchires, and the Cyclopes who forged for him his thunderbolts(interplanetary lightning?), Poseidon's trident (Earthquakes) and Hades' helmet of darkness(dust in atmosphere, nuclear winter?).

In a vast war called the Titanomachy, 3.Zeus(Jupiter) and his brothers and sisters, with the help of the Hecatonchires(the three hundredhanders), and Cyclopes(round-eyes), overthrew 2.Kronos(Saturn) and his five siblings. Afterwards, many of the Titans were confined in Tartarus(vanished from sight?), however, Atlas, Epimetheus, Helios, Menoetius, Oceanus and Prometheus were not imprisoned following the Titanomachy. The monster Typhon is born... Serpent-in-the-sky?

During this vast war in the Heavens, the 'Hundredhanders' throw rocks as big as mountains, a hundred at a time:

....three giants of incredible strength and ferocity that surpassed all of the Titans, whom they helped overthrow. Their name derives from the Greek ἑκατόν (hekaton, "hundred") and χείρ (cheir, "hand"), "each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads" (Bibliotheca 1.1). Hesiod's Theogony (624, 639, 714, 734–35) reports that the three Hecatoncheires became the guards of the gates of Tartarus. The Hundred-Handed-Ones are "giants" of great storms and hurricanes.

Cataclysmic meteorite showers?

3.Zeus(Jupiter) comes with a large bolide, thunder and lightning, and meteorite showers:

After reaching manhood, 3.Zeus(Jupiter) forced 2.Kronos(Saturn) to disgorge first the stone [bolide?] (which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the Omphalos) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave 2.Kronos(Saturn) an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut 2.Kronos(Saturn)'s stomach open. Then 3.Zeus(Jupiter) released the brothers of 2.Kronos(Saturn), the Gigantes, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes...

As a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave 3.Zeus(Jupiter) thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, 3.Zeus(Jupiter) and his brothers and sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew 2.Kronos(Saturn) and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans that fought against 3.Zeus(Jupiter), was punished by having to hold up the sky.

After the battle with the Titans, 3.Zeus(Jupiter) shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon(earthquakes) and Hades(Darkness, dusty atmosphere, nuclear winter?), by drawing lots: 3.Zeus(Jupiter) got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth, Gaia, could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities (thunderbolts, earthquakes, and darkened atmosphere), which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes)

...attempts to give 2.Kronos(Saturn) a Greek etymology ...failed. Recently, ... a genuinely Indo-European etymology of "the cutter", from the root *(s)ker- "to cut" (Greek κείρω (keirō), c.f. English shear), motivated by Cronus's characteristic act of "cutting the sky" (or the genitals of anthropomorphic Uranus). The Indo-Iranian reflex of the root is kar, generally meaning "to make, create" (whence karma), but Janda argues that the original meaning "to cut" in a cosmogonic sense is still preserved in some verses of the Rigveda pertaining to Indra's heroic "cutting", like that of Cronus resulting in creation:

This may point to an older Indo-European mytheme reconstructed as *(s)kert wersmn diwos "by means of a cut he created the loftiness of the sky". The myth of Kronos castrating Uranus parallels the Song of Kumarbi, where Anu (the heavens) is castrated by Kumarbi. In the Song of Ullikummi, Teshub uses the "sickle with which heaven and earth had once been separated" to defeat the monster Ullikummi, establishing that the "castration" of the heavens by means of a sickle .... sometimes still offered somewhat apologetically, holds that 2.Kronos(Saturn) is related to "horned", assuming a Semitic derivation from qrn. Andrew Lang's objection, that Cronus was never represented horned in Hellenic art, was addressed by Robert Brown, arguing that in Semitic usage, as in the Hebrew Bible qeren was a signifier of "power". When Greek writers encountered the Semitic deity El, they rendered his name as 2.Kronos(Saturn).

So 2.Kronos(Saturn) is pre-Greek, son of 1.Uranus, at the time of 3.Zeus(Jupiter) overcoming his 'father' 2.Kronos(Saturn) who is castrated by 3.Zeus(Jupiter), gives birth to a war in the heavens, celestial foam, Earth is pelted with meteorites, a hundred at a time, a fiery serpent-in-the-sky, thunderbolts from heaven and 4.Aphrodite(Venus) is born....

comingfrom wrote:From that it seems that Venus formed after an interaction between Saturn and Uranus

The planet we know as Uranus was discovered by Herschel in the late 18th C. A committee of astronomers determined the name, which they based upon mythology.The god (Uranus) referred to in myth most likely does not refer to that planet as there is no evidence that the ancients were even aware of the existence of the planet presently known by that name.

nick c wrote:The god (Uranus) referred to in myth most likely does not refer to that planet as there is no evidence that the ancients were even aware of the existence of the planet presently known by that name.

Haha, yeah, I was going along with the thread, which as I understand is related to Velikovsky's Venus as a comet born out of Jupiter proposal... so I started with the proviso:

sketch1946 wrote:Assuming the myths refer to actual solar system events:

I then pointed out that the same sort of orbital changes that Velikovsky proposed are suggested quite routinely these days by mainstream scientists:

sketch1946 wrote:One hypothesis is that the rings are remnants of a destroyed moon of 2.Kronos(Saturn).

sketch1946 wrote:Recent simulations of planetary migration have suggested that both ice giants formed closer to the Sun than their present positions, and moved outwards after formation

sketch1946 wrote:As 3.Zeus(Jupiter) came toward the inner Solar System, in what theorists call the Grand Tack Hypothesis, gravitational tugs and pulls occurred causing a series of collisions between the super-Earths as their orbits began to overlap.

etc...then I went on to try to show that if the Greeks had inherited the story from some distant tradition when other planets were visible in the sky, then their myth about the father of Kronos/Saturn might be another planet, maybe even Uranus

So yes, the Greeks didn't have any knowledge of Uranus, if it was indeed in a celestial interaction with Saturn, but only retained the story of the father of their planet Saturn, along with the other cosmic struggles of their gods, it does depend on whether you believe these myths contain some history....I personally believe they do, but I'm fairly open-minded about the details...

... then I went on to show that there are myths in other cultures that possibly relate to similar celestial dramas.... including hypothetical Indo-European language roots, and other Mesopotamian and old Indian traditions that hint at these hypothetical planet-wandering events... this is exactly what Velikovsky wrote about, the similarity of celestial dramas in cultures across the world, all relating to Venus, fiery serpents in the sky, and catastrophes....

sketch1946 wrote:This may point to an older Indo-European mytheme reconstructed as *(s)kert wersmn diwos "by means of a cut he created the loftiness of the sky". The myth of Kronos castrating Uranus parallels the Song of Kumarbi, where Anu (the heavens) is castrated by Kumarbi. In the Song of Ullikummi, Teshub uses the "sickle with which heaven and earth had once been separated" to defeat the monster Ullikummi, establishing that the "castration" of the heavens by means of a sickle

Got me to thinking now. Grandfather may have been a precursor form of Venus, an hairy comet for example.A great deal of plasma as it interacts with Saturn.Or, as the Saturnian system was making first contact with the Solar system.Then a comet tail as the scythe slashing, and the comet head the genitals.A lot of plasma and dust to make a frothy sea, from which the planet Venus emerges.

Some say there is no reason to believe the myths relate to celestial events, but what else can make sense of gods behaving this way, and doing what the myths say they did?~Paul

The planet Uranus may well have been involved in some catastrophic scenario at some point in its history. It seems to have been flipped over on its side with respect to the ecliptic along with the orbits of several of its satellites. But we cannot assume that there is any connection to the god Uranus of myth for the reasons given in my previous post.

nick c wrote:The god (Uranus) referred to in myth most likely does not refer to that planet as there is no evidence that the ancients were even aware of the existence of the planet presently known by that name.

Good point, Nick, I understand what you're saying here...

but...

the Greeks and others had a mythology that included the current naked-eye visible **planets...In this mythology, there are numerous descriptions that describe possible catastrophic solar system events which Velikovsky proposed were caused by orbital changes in recent timesand... the Greeks had included **another player the Greeks called Uranus the father of Saturn...

Logically, going along with the suggestion of orbital changes, and god=planet story, then we need another planet to be the 'father' of Saturn....

If this other planet, the 'father' of Saturn, referred to another solar system body, it clearly wasn't Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, or Jupiter and so could it have been another orbit-wandering planet?

The most likely then is the planet we have recently named Uranus since it shows signs of some interaction with another planet-sized body.

Logically, then why not choose the body we call Uranus?

We can't see the planet Uranus today with the naked eye, but if this catastrophic scenario of orbital changes had happened, then Uranus may have been visible in the past....

So that's why I suggested that because in the Greek myths there was **another god/planet called 'Uranus', this same planet might have even been the planet **we called 'Uranus'.

If we had called it 'Planet Z' instead of 'Uranus', then the planet-orbital-wandering hypothesis could then link 'Planet Z' to the Greek references to the mythological father of Saturn, Uranus....

This, [my comment] should probably go in niami but here goes. Trying to understand the myths from an EU perspective my working hypothesis is that the sun is moving through space on a helical trajectory, possibly a double helix trajectory. The 'orbit' of the first helix takes about 24000 years and is confined by an electro-static force, easier to think of it as some form of aether wire. The sun caught up with Saturn which was ahead of us in the 'wire' and some sort of electro-magnetic shock ensued as the distribution of energy in the 'wire' was disturbed, this shock allowed the dense core to seperate from the gaseous part of the planet, either accelerated magnetically due to it's iron content or simply by inertia. Sirius is likely in the same 'wire' following us.Could Saturn have been in orbit around Jupiter before they were both captured? Homer was likely captive Trojan Priests/Druids enslaved by the Greeks who left behind a record of their culture that the Greeks preserved and passed down but who clearly never developed the same encryption skills in their writing. See 'Homers secret Iliad', for more. The stories of the Gods were about the Royals of MinoanCrete layered into the histories of the heavens, and probably more but I can't read Greek. Not so sure about Hesiod who could be Greek or possibly a priest/druid who's training wasn't complete. Tying back to Velikovsky try Achilles on for size as Tutankhamun, at least the dodgy ankle and childhood references, think hostage prince.IIRC Robin Temple investigated the possibility of ancient lenses and if they could polish obsidian to perfection glass would be no problem so they may probably could see more than we allow.